FLASH I:

The first Flash we know of is Jason Peter Garrick, known as "Jay", born circa 1917 or 1918, attended "Midwestern University" where he suffered the accident with chemicals that gave him his tremendous speed. We know nothing about his parentage at all from the comics.

My own research is that the Garricks are descended from one of Shakespearean actor David Garrick's six siblings.

Sheldon Garrick is the first person in the direct line of descent that I can trace to Jay, who emigrated to America from England in the early 19th century. He was a teacher, interested in chemical researches, and was interested in the opportunities in the New World. He married Jane Moreau, sister of Sabrina Moreau Lane Jeckyll, the mother of Henry Jeckyll, a reknowned chemist, whom Stevenson immortalized in DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE. Through that line she was also aunt to the Dr. Moreau that H.G. Wells wrote about, and daughter of Elizabeth Frankenstein, who was in turn the daughter of Ernst Frankenstein, younger brother and one surviving relative of Victor Frankenstein.

Sheldon had two children who survived. One girl, named Shelly, married an English banker named Griffin, and their son, an albino also named Griffin (Alan Moore gives him a first name of Hawley, but we're not sure about that) who was both a medical student and one interested in physics. Still, his main interest seems to have been in chemicals, and he used it to make himself the world's first super-criminal. Those interested in reading about his career are directed to H.G. Wells' account of the matter, THE INVISIBLE MAN. Griffin seems to have lied to his friend Kemp about the manner in which he acheived invisibility---it makes no sense, scientifically...but Griffin obviously did not want to give out his real method to anybody, and delighted in confusing Kemp, his old classmate. (Both Griffins seem to have been theives---the elder Griffin killed himself after the younger Griffin stole from him, and it turns out what he had stolen were embezzled funds the older one had stolen from the bank.) The other was Peter Garrick.

It's interesting to note that Jay could also achieve invisibility of a sort, via his high velocity...and was also a freak of science due to a scientific/chemical experiment gone wrong.

His son, Peter Garrick, was a research chemist born circa 1843. He married a Dutch immigrant, Katrina Van Helsing, with reddish hair and blue eyes---like her father, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a reknowned teacher and doctor and metaphysician in Europe. Readers know that Van Helsing was the implacable foe of the vampire Dracula, and of all things evil. Much of the Garrick's determination to go to any lengths to stop evil was probably derived from him....as well as their blue eyes.

His son, David Jason Garrick,was born circa 1868, and grew up to become a chemistry professor. He married a Carol Mayfair, sister to Blodgett Mayfair, an Oklahoma Petroleum chemist with ancestors who went back to the Mayflower. That makes his son, Harry Garrick, first cousin to the reknowned chemist and adventurer Monk Mayfair. Monk and Harry didn't look anything alike, Monk looking more like his maternal uncle, Professor Challenger. Still, Monk and Jay shared chemical genuis, a love of adventuring, and a love of pretty girls.

One of David's siblings, a sister, Natalie Garrick married a Kennedy, distantly related to the same clan that gave us a U.S. President...and their child was Craig Kennedy, whom Arthur Reeve wrote about. Craig Kennedy was a professor of chemistry at Columbia University who often assisted the police with state-of-the-art (for its time) devices and scientific developements in the early years of the 20th century. He was quite similar in temperament to Jay Garrick, who was the son of Craig's first cousin....

Another sister, Irene Garrick, married a James West Jr., a settler in Nebraska. Their son was Ira West, of which more later.

Craig Kennedy's mother, Natalie, after the death of her first husband, Dr. Kennedy, married a Raymond Richards. Her son was Nathaniel Richards, millionaire and eccentric scientist...and father to Reed Richards, who Jay so resembled, especially when they were both in their forties. (The only substantial difference between them is that Jay has blue eyes and Reed has brown. Reed was born about 1920, and very much resembled his cousin, Jay Garrick, also a fellow scientist....although of the two, Reed had the more wide-ranging intellect.) Nathaniel Richards was the friend, cousin, and colleague of Ira West, of which more later...

This is Jay Garrick in the early 1960s...

This is Reed Richards also in the early 1960s. Both were in their early forties' at the time.

Nathaniel Richards married Elaine Zharkov, sister to Dr. Hans Zharkov, an eminent rocket scientist. (See the comic strip FLASH GORDON for more on Dr. Zharkov's career.) His wife died when Reed was seven, and Nathaniel remarried a woman named Cassandra, and had a Nathaniel Jr. and a Tara, half-brother and half-sister to Reed.

Nathaniel had two siblings in all; an older brother got in trouble with the law and was disinherited, and became a butler for the New Jersey millionaire Lamont Cranston (whose identity was sometimes usurped by the Shadow). Then there was Nathaniel himself, the second sibling---and a much younger brother named Walter. Walter married a woman named Marge (last name unknown to me) that he sometimes called, as a playful nickname, "Dottie", late in life.

Their daughter, Mary Richards (born 1937), moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul. She became assistant producer of an evening TV news show. Her life story was played by Mary Tyler Moore in the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.

The son of David Jason Garrick and Carol Mayfair was Harry Garrick, Jay's father, born circa 1892. A chemist for a farming supply company, he married a woman who was half-English.

Jay's mother was a woman named Alice Gibberne. She was the daughter of a reknowned professor, Professor (Alfred?) Gibberne. Gibberne was a distant relative. Shelly Garrick Griffin, suspecting her husband's dishonesty, divorced him and married a Dr. Gibberne. Their son was Alfred Gibberne, who was thus the Invisible Man's half-brother. They shared chemical genius, if little else. This Mistophelean-looking scientist got some publicity in "The New Accelerator", a story/article by H.G. Wells, where he and Wells took a stroll--- at super-speed. In fact, they were going so fast that if they had broken out into a run, they might have burst into flames from the friction.

Gibberne was going to market his product, which he called "The New Accelerator". He used Wells' article as a way to get the word to the masses, because the serum would have revolutionized society. Then...

Nothing happened.

Gibberne died within the next ten years, implying that complications came up, and there was more testing to be done. We're not sure why---but we can guess that the strains of super-speed, without the accompanying aura the Flashes have, might involve more lawsuits than blessings. It also might have accelerated the aging process. It's odd that no notes were found on how to make the "New Accelerator"...either Gibberne wanted to keep it ultra-secret until it was mass marketed, or perhaps the notes were destroyed by industrial saboteurs from the transporation industries, who saw their stock in trains and automobiles at stake. One wonders if he had mass marketed the product, how different the 20th century would have been...

Evidently constantly testing the "New Accelerator" on himself---altered his genetic structure, the same way taking some drugs, such as thalidomine, in the fifties resulted in birth defects for the babies of mothers. But in this case, it made one descended from him more prone to developing super-speed.

Prof. Gibberne, inventor of the "New Accelerator", was the first human to achieve super-speed by chemical means...and the common genetic link between the Flashes.

Gibberne's serum evidently allows humans to access the "speed force", a source of power beyond the speed of light. Else how to explain the way it allows one to accellerate thousands of times without increasing one's food intake thousands of times? Yet it lacked something---Gibberne was vulnerable to friction, and evidently was never successful in developing a "retarder", or able to administer the serum in less-accelerated doses.

The British Food and Drug authorities would not authorize its release, with reason. He decided to move to the American Midwest where testing standards were a little less stringent, to see if he could get it under control...

And there he married Emma Thompson of Iowa. Alice was his first daughter, born in 1900, but not his last. His second daughter, Nadine, born in 1901,married an Ira West, a scientist in Nebraska. Unfortunately, Gibberne's wife died in childbirth with the second daughter.

In 1902, Gibberne had an affair with an Iowa girl named Jane Thompson, his beloved Emma's sister, who was so like her. Their daughter was Nora Thompson. Yet that affair made him persona non grata in the staid Midwest. (Nora, as a consequence of her illigitimate birth, raised her son, Barry Allen, to be more of a "straight arrow", more stiff, than strictly necessary. She also waited until she was in her late twenties before marrying and having a child, whereas her half-sister, Alice Garrick, married Harry Garrick when she was eighteen. Nora, ashamed of her origins, deliberately didn't keep up with her father's family, and thus Barry Allen had no idea that he was a younger cousin, by over ten years difference, of Jay Garrick. Or that Rudolph West, Wally's father, was also a first cousin.)

The "hard water" that Jay encountered not only triggered his latent super-speed but also, in emulating Superman, supplied an aura that rendered friction harmless. (Indeed, the Flashes may have channelled the heat from friction into even more energy.) It is there where the Flashes excelled over all other super-speedsters.

Gibberne spent a year in New York after leaving the Midwest. There he had twins by a woman named Chambers, a boy and a girl. The boy was the father of Johnny Chambers, also known as Johnny Quick, a founding member of the All-Star Squadron. He died when Johnny was young in a car accident, but he managed to pass on super-speed to his son, which he released via a "speed formula" which was really a mantra. He in turn passed those abilities on to his daughter, Jesse Quick.

Neither Johnny nor Jessie could achieve the superlative speed of the Flashes, being limited by friction, but the Quicks were able to channel their velocity in different ways from the Flashes, and achieved limited flight.

The daughter married a professor named Frank. Their son, Robert L. Frank, was in dire need of a transfusion, and the father, temporarily deranged by the injury to his beloved son, tried transfusing mongoose blood into his son. Of course that had no effect--- save to trigger his immune defenses and to activate his latent super-speed. He became a member of the short-lived All-Winners Squad, the peacetime successor to the Invaders, under the name, the Whizzer. (Of course, having never been exposed to the "hard water" fumes, he never developed an aura, and thus could never match the speed of the Flashes.)

Then Gibberne left New York City, travelling to Europe. Gibberne always had an eye for the ladies, though, and had one last illegitimate child, named Magda, by a gypsy woman. This Magda married another gypsy man and had a daughter, also named Magda. This second Magda married Eric Magnus Lensherr, a survivor of the Holocaust who lost his gypsy relatives to Hitler's madness. Their first child, Anya, died in a fire---but Magda was pregnant with twins when Eric showed the mutant magnetic powers which would someday make him feared as Magneto. Scared to death, Magda ran away from her husband, and had the twins far from him, naming them Pietro and Wanda before she died from complications in childbirth.

Wanda had unusual mutant powers, but Pietro's super-speed was inherited more from his grandfather than his father. Like the Whizzer and Johnny Quick, he had no aura to protect him if he reached the speed where friction could burn him, so he never attained the superlative speed of the Flashes. Still, as Quicksilver, Pietro first made quite a name for himself, first as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants, and then as a member of the Avengers.

This is not to say that every speedster is descended from Professor Gibberne. The super-fast individual known as Max Mercury evidently achieved both the speed and the aura (although his speed did not match that of the Flashes at their peak) in the early nineteenth century, as did the reprehensible Savitar in the twentieth. (Mercury's origins, at least, are more mystical than scientific.) Evidently these are abilities that at least some human beings can call upon. Some Russians evidently got fed a diluted version of the Accelerator. (Of course, there is a possibility that the Russians and Savitar are descended from Gibberne's gypsy child...)

Nevertheless, it does explain the explosion of speedsters in the twentieth century.

FLASH II:

Now let's look into Barry Allen's family tree:

The first Allen we know of in the direct line of descent to Barry Allen was Carmine Allen. Carmine was the nephew of the Mr. Allen mentioned in Jane Austin's NORTHANGER ABBEY, son of his younger brother. Unfortunately, he inherited little of his uncle's wealth, and was an apothecary. He married Lily Durbeyfield. Descended from an old family, the D'Urbevilles, her cousin, Tess Durbeyfield, was the subject of Thomas Hardy's TESS OF THE D'URBEVILLES. Their son was Gardner Allen.

Carmine's sister, Ericka, became a governess, and was the narrator of Henry James' horrifying TURN OF THE SCREW. Barry Allen, her great-great-nephew, once also had a mystical experience with a spirit, albeit one not as horrifying. (Interestingly, the story was first mentioned in a party given by the Griffins who were the parents of the Invisible Man...)

Gardner Allen was an English vetinarian who helped the local farmers with their animals. (His wife was mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes novel, THE VALLEY OF FEAR, as a housekeeper, which is how she supported herself as he went to America---she did not want to leave the "civilized" English society. It was rather beneath her, for her brother was a solicitor---a lawyer, we would say in America--but women in the Victorian age only had a limited number of legitimate occupations. Her brother was Jonathan Harker, and his story can be read in Bram Stoker's DRACULA.)

Robert Allen was a druggist in Iowa. Robert Allen went back to England to visit his ailing mother, and that's where he met Henrietta Fortune, and married her. Her brother was Reggie Fortune, the cherubic blond-haired, blue-eyed forensic and medical expert who solved many crimes for the London police. His deeds were chronicled by H.C. Bailey. He solved crimes in the twenties, thirties, and forties, and was born around 1892. Reggie was the lone son of a local doctor, with several sisters. One older sister, born around 1882, married an Allen, visiting from Iowa.

Dr. Fortune, Reggie's father, married a older sister of Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, who was born circa 1869. Dr. Thorndyke was a reknowned scientific investigator, physician and barrister. His solving of many crimes was recorded by Austin Freeman. He was extremely handsome, also.

The child of Robert and Henrietta Fortune was Henry Allen, born in 1902, who became a local doctor in Fallville Iowa. He married Nora Thompson.

The second Flash, Barry Allen, was born circa 1932, in Fallville Iowa, to Dr. Henry Allen and Nora Thompson Allen. (He was one of twins. The other twin was presumed stillborn, but actually raised by others, under the name Malcolm Thawne.)

There was another sister of Reggie's who married an American, from Glenville, Long Island, named Storm. Their son was Franklin Storm, who was similar to Dr. Allen in many ways, including appearance. He was an acclaimed surgeon, but on the way to an award ceremony, there was a car accident, and his wife Mary was badly injured and died on the operating table.

After her death, Franklin went into gambling, and was eventually accosted by a loan shark out to retrieve the money due him by threatening Storm's family---his children, Susan and Johnny. They struggled and the loan shark accidentally shot himself. Still guilt-ridden over the death of his wife, he wouldn't say a word in his defense, and served a long jail term for manslaughter, until his death.

His children, of course, were Sue Storm and Jonathan Spencer Lowell Storm, who became two promiment members of the Fantastic Four....the Invisible Girl/Woman and the second Human Torch.

Franklin Storm's older brother had two sons who became criminals. Dr. Axel Storm was a great scientist, but almost insanely obsessed in protecting his younger brother, a habitual criminal called Fred Storm. He developed a helmet that derived powers from the stars to heighten his own intellect, and called himself Brain Storm. He fought the Justice League--including Barry Allen--- repeatedly...

A third son became Capt. Storm, a naval captain who lost his leg during World War II, and later his life towards the end of the war.

Franklin Storm's beloved wife was named Mary. Her last name was Griffin. The Invisible Man, Hawley Griffin, had had an older sister who bore a son out of wedlock, but died in childbirth, before he had embarked on his transparent but criminal career. The child was sent to an orphanage in America, and he grew up to have a daughter, Mary. So interestingly enough, the Invisible Man was the great-great-uncle to the Invisible Woman, Susan Storm Richards...although there was nothing that she inherited from him that might give her invisibility.

Henry Allen had a sister named Edith Allen who married a Harold Barton, a small businessman in Waverly, Iowa. Unfortunately, both Harold and Edith died in a car crash in 1947, leaving behind two small boys, Clint and Barney Barton. They were placed in a state orphanage...why Henry or some other family member didn't adopt them was never made clear...and ran away to the circus.

Clint, at least, grew up to become a circus performer, under the name "Hawkeye the Marksman". His brother Barney became a professional criminal. Hawkeye, inspired by Iron Man/Tony Stark, tried to become a crimefighter, but was mistaken as a criminal. Then he fell in love with a Russian spy named Natasha Romanoff and got embroiled with her fights with Iron Man. He later reformed, and became an Avenger...albeit an outspoken and hot-tempered one. Like Barry Allen, he had blonde hair and blue eyes and hailed from a small Iowa town, but Clint's and Barry's personality were worlds apart. His brother, "Barney" Barton died saving his younger brother.

Clint had no super-powers, but his amazing archery, and his trick arrows (a la Green Arrow) made him a formidable foe. On his father's side he was descended from Gideon Root, mentioned in RAINTREE COUNTY, and his wife, who was a descendent of Natty Bumppo, who was also called Hawkeye, among other aliases.

Harold Barton's mother, though, had a maiden name of Queen, and was a sister of the Richard Queen who was a NYC police inspector, Ellery Queen's father, and also the sister of the father of the first Oliver Queen, the expert on American Indians, who later became the first Green Arrow, and a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory. (In the ten years he was collecting his Indian collection, he married a wealthy woman called Morgana Stark. The marriage ended in divorce, but not before she bore him Oliver Queen Jr., who would become the second Green Arrow, and a member of the Justice League of America. Morgana was sister to Benedict Stark, the gruesomely ugly millionaire who was a sworn enemy of the Shadow, and Howard Stark, who married a Maria Kane and was the father of Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. Maria Kane was a niece to the Martha Kane who was the mother of Bruce Wayne/Batman.)

Henry's youngest sister, Alexandra, married a Thomas Fairchild, who ran an Iowa farm. Her grandson was Alexander Thomas Fairchild, who escaped Iowa farm life by joining West Point and later joining Special Forces during Vietnam. (His mother was a Rhodes, one of Mary Rhodes' sisters, where he got his red hair and green eyes, shared by his daughter.) He got in trouble for sleeping with a general's wife, but later joined Team 7, a goverment organization that entailed exposure to a Gen-factor, which gave him additional powers, like telekinetic/telepathic powers and cellular regeneration.

He had two children. One was Caitlan Fairchild, who in turn would be exposed to the Gen-Factor and gain immense strength. She would lead the team that called itself Gen13. Roxanne Spaulding was her half-sister, code-named Freefall, for her powers granted by the Gen-Factor allow her to negate the pull of gravity, also a valued member of the Gen13 team.

Barry's mother, Nora Thompson, was the natural daughter of a woman named Jane Thompson and Dr. Gibberne in his old age. She tended to be prim and proper, perhaps an overreaction to her illegitimate status.

James Thompson, Nora's grandfather, was a policeman in Fallville, Iowa, and his father, Harold Irwin Thompson, had been marshall there. (Harold Thompson married a half-Indian, a niece to Black Hawk---the Sauk Indian leader, not the Polish freedom fighter.) Her grandmother, James Thompson's wife, interestingly enough, was Sarah Gale. Her lineage can be traced in my "A Bewitched Batson Genealogy or The Marvel Family Tree". Suffice it to say, she was the daughter of Henry and Emma Gale, Dorothy Gale's aunt and uncle. (Dorothy Gale's tale was told in fictionalized form in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Philip Jose Farmer explained much more of her life and the other Oz books in A BARNSTORMER IN OZ.)

Henry and Carl Gale (Carl was Dorothy's father) were the sons of Carl Corey and his common-law wife, Henrietta Gale. Readers of Roger Zelanzy's AMBER series know that Carl Corey was the name by which Prince Corwin of the dimension-hopping family of Amber went under. This may explain the Flashes' propensity, alone among super-speedsters, to pierce dimensions and the veils of space and time. It may have less to do with their super-speed than their Amberite blood. After all, if the Flashes really did achieve near-light speeds, the mass they would accrue would cause Earth itself to tear itself apart, drawn to the gravitational force of the huge mass they would achieve. Long before that, they would fly off the Earth, upon reaching escape velocity. Their speed, though immense, was exaggerated by the comics. (It is fitting that the two lightning-clad "family" of heroes, the Marvels and the Flashes, should have a common ancestor.) Note that both Corwin and Dorothy Gale had green eyes, as did Wally West, another descendent, and the third Flash, whereas blue eyes were much commoner in the Allen and Garrick families.

Sarah had initially fled the staid life in Kansas/South Dakota, but on the way out of there had fallen for James Thompson, and gotten pregnant by him. She stayed for several years, having the two children, Emma (Dr. Gibberne's legal wife) and Jane---but realized life in Fallville wasn't that much more exciting than her parents' South Dakota farm. She left her husband and children and travelled on, later marrying the far more glamorous Professor Ryan Shea, and had Alex Shea, the father of Harold Shea of L.Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER. Whether Professor Shea ever knew his "wife" had committed bigamy is debatable. James eventually divorced her legally after her abandonment, anyway.

James' brother, Irwin, went to Texas and got involved in oil drilling, making quite a bit of money there. His grandson, Harry Thompson, got the nickname "Tex" Thompson. Later, he became a costumed adventurer called "Mr. America", and still later, the "Americomando". Whether he was costumed or not, he had a talent in getting into close scrapes.

A brother of "Tex" went to NYC. He married late in life, and his son was Eugene Thompson, high school jock who won an athletic scholarship---and was the bane of Peter Parker's life while in school. Still, like Barry, he had the blonde hair and blue eyes that many in his family shared, and like Barry, he was a hero-worshipper---Barry idealized Jay Garrick, and Eugene idolized Spider-Man. Interestingly, Eugene's nickname was...

"Flash" Thompson.

It's worth noting that the Allen family tree takes off a little ....strangely.... after Barry got married. He married Iris West, the adopted daughter of Ira West. Iris was really the daughter of a couple called the Russells, who faced what they thought was certain disaster, and sent their daughter back in time from the 30th century in a time-travel capsule. She was killed by Eobard Thawne, also known as the Reverse-Flash, a descendent of Barry's twin, Malcolm Thawne. (The Reverse-Flash had chemically imitated Barry's speed and was a criminal in the 25th century.)

The Russells, knowing that would happen, took Iris' life-essence and put it in a new body---back in the 30th century. Barry eventually rejoined her there, and the couple had twins, Don and Dawn Allen, before Barry died, literally saving the universe from the anti-matter entity known as the Anti-Monitor.

Dawn and Don inherited part of their father's speed. Dawn passed it on to her daughter, who became XS of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Don married Melodi Thawne, daughter of President Thawne of the Earth confederation of the 30th century, and a descendent of Eobard and Malcolm Thawne. Their child, Bart Allen, was born with full super-speed but was growing up at an accelerated rate. Finally, to save his life, his grandmother Iris took him back in time to meet her adopted nephew, Wally West, the third Flash...and the only superhuman to have super-speed as a power from an adolescent on.

Wally helped Impulse stabilize his aging, and he now lives in Manchester, Alabama, in the present, to learn how to use his powers. He is a prominent member of Young Justice. It's interesting to note that the Summers-Grey family tree has some odd byways in the future, also.

Unmentioned in the comics, but an interesting sidelight, is that Melodi Thawne's mother was named Richards, and was a sister of the Nathanial Richards who was a descendent of Reed Richards' father---and became known alternately as Rama-Tut in ancient Egypt, and Kang the Conqueror. This Nathanial Richards, bored with the staid life of the 30th century, journeyed back to ancient Egypt, and later, tried to return to his home century, but overshot the mark, and ended up in 4000 A.D., a time where primitives wielded weapons they could no longer understand. He became one of the most unrelenting enemies of the Avengers.

FLASH III:

Wally West's family was somewhat examined in this article. Wally is descended from James West, the Secret Service agent under General Grant whose exploits were the basis for the TV series, THE WILD, WILD WEST.

His grandson, Ira West, was a nobel-award-winning physicist, born about 1900. Inbetween was his father, James West II, who settled in Nebraska and married Irene Garrick, the sister of David Garrick, Jay Garrick's grandfather.

Ira and Nadine had two children and adopted a third. Charlotte and Rudolph were their natural children. The third, Iris, shimmered into their sight in a time-travelling vehicle sent by Iris' real parents, the Russells, who sent her into the past to escape a possible disaster in their present.

Ira analyzed the lingering radiations left on Iris for a few weeks after her time-transit, and consulted with his friend and relative, Nathaniel Richards, another brillant scientist. WIth the hints left from those analyzed radiations, Nathaniel would eventually build a time machine of his own, and disappear soon after Reed graduated circa 1942.

Rudolph, Wally's father, was a bit of a con man. Oh, he lived a rather humdrum life in Blue Valley, Nebraska, having married Mary Rhodes. He also secretely joined the "Manhunter" cult, in exchange for added financial support, and when the cult ordered him to try to kill his wife...actually tried to.

Since then, his wife divorced him, and he's been pursuing one con man job after another, even after his apparent heroic "death".

Wally, of course, grew up as head of the local "Flash Fan Club", and suffered an accident startlingly similar to Barry Allen's, gaining the same powers. After Barry died, he became the new Flash.

Wally's mother, Mary Rhodes, was born around 1925. Her mother was named Smith, and was an older sister of Woodrow Wilson Smith (born 1912), and daughter to Brian Smith and Maureen Johnson Smith. (Note that both Woodrow Wilson Smith and Maureen Johnson Smith have deep rich red hair and green eyes like Wally does.)

Robert A. Heinlein came across a diary, written in code, by a World War I soldier named Ted Bronson, supposedly killed in combat. In it, Bronson claimed to be Woodrow Wilson Smith---or Lazarus Long, as he often called himself...an extremely long-lived man who lived over two thousand years as of the writing of that diary...who had time-travelled back to meet his parents and himself when young. In it, he outlined a "future history" and details of stories that enchanted Heinlein, once he cracked the code. He used many of the events mentioned in "Bronson's" diary for many of his stories, including the novel about Lazarus Long, METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN.

Heinlein was a realist, and thought it was all just Bronson's ravings and overactive imagination in the foxholes of World War I...

Until he later met Woodrow Wilson Smith in the forties. Then he didn't know what to think.

Lazarus Long/W.W. Smith was the result of a breeding program to extend human life, but he himself must have been (as he himself speculated) a mutant, because his lifespan is seemingly unending.

According to some later novels (THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS, THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST) Lazarus lived in a seperate time-line from this one. It's hard to know how Heinlein could have known of those adventures, but it's possible he found other clues. Nevertheless, no matter how much one timeline "diverged" history was the same up through 1930 or so, so we would expect a Lazarus Long in each of the timelines. Personally, I think the stories that contradict established history with Heinlein's "Future History" is either Heinlein's own fictional stories or a misunderstanding of the notes "Bronson" left.

Of course, it could have all been "Bronson's" delusion, and Woodrow Wilson Smith may be an old man now, or dead, having served as the literary model for Lazarus Long. I must admit I can't find contemporary records for him, though....

Mary's sister, Elaine Rhodes, married a Professor John Grey, of Annadale-on-the-Hudson, New York. (Another sister married into the Fairchild family of Iowa farmers.) A literature professor, they had two girls. One, Sara, was perfectly normal, but the other sister, Jean Grey, had both telekinetic and telepathic powers. Like Lazarus Long, she was a mutant, although her mutation was different. (Like her grandmother, Maureen Johnson, she had red hair and green eyes.) She was mentored by Professor Charles Xavier, and became a member of the X-Men. (Her story was initially chronicled by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.) She was known variously as Marvel Girl and as Pheonix.

Actually, Jean derives her telekinetic powers, at least, from her father's side. His mother was a half-Chinese San Franciscan, named Sarah Jong. Though Sara was perfectly normal, her sister was Washingtonia Jong, who joined "Odd" John Wainwright's colony of mutant supernormals, capable of, among other things, feats of telepathy and some limited telekinesis.("Odd" John Wainwright was the uncle to Jean Grey's mentor, Professor Xavier. "Odd" John's engineer brother, Tom Wainwright, had an affair with an American woman named King. Their child was Henry King, who physically resembled "Odd" John quite a lot, and whose ability to materialize thoughts from his imagination classed him also as homo superior. He became the greatest enemy of the Justice Society, including Jay Garrick, under the name Brain Wave.)

John Grey's older sister married a man named Jerome, and their daughter, Janie Jerome, was also a telekinetic, as readers of Theodore Sturgeon's MORE THAN HUMAN can attest. His younger sister, Judith, married a John Brigham. Their daughter, Margaret Brigham, was a rather fanatic fundamentalist Christian. She married Ralph White, a construction worker who died on the job.

Their tragic (but telekinetic) daughter, Carrie White, became the subject of the novel CARRIE by Stephen King. King changed some details, placing the action a few years in his own future and implying the entire world heard of her telekinetic vengeance. Actually, it was covered up by disbeleving authorities, and the change in dating was to throw investigators off the track.

It's worth noting that Jean Grey, according to one storyline, had a clone-sister who had a son by Scott Summers, better known as Cyclops. (He later became Jean's husband.) That son, Nathaniel Dayspring Summers, was sent to the far future (roughly the 3700s) and raised by a special cult. He inherited his mother/aunt's telekinetic and telepathic powers, but had to use much of them to keep a special techno-virus in check. He became known under the name Cable. Like the Allens and the Smiths, the Grey-Summers family line had strange offshoots in other centuries...

Mary's father was Randolph Rhodes, a gun shop dealer, who married Miss Smith, daughter of Brian Smith and Maureen Johnson. Mary's uncle, James, who was a career soldier, took the unusual step (for the times) of marrying an African-American woman. Their eldest son also married an African-American woman. The resulting child, their grandson, was James R. Rhodes, friend of billionaire munitions maker Tony Stark and who served both as the second Iron Man and the hero called War Machine. James Rhodes was an accomplished pilot, a Vietnam vet, and a business executive.

Nor were the Smiths the only source of Mary and Wally's red hair. Randolph had a brother, James, who married the African American-woman who was James R. Rhodes grandmother. He had a sister named Beulah who married a man named Starr (he claimed to be descended from Belle Starr). Their daughter was Brenda Starr, who became a famous reporter, with the startlingly red hair that Rudolf Rassendyl had....through her grandmother.

Randolph's father was Samuel Rhodes, who married Elaine Rassendyl, a daughter of the Earl of Burlesdon and Rudolf Rassendyl's neice. Samuel worked for the same arms company that Ralph Rassendyl worked for, and was introduced to her by his superior, Ralph.

Samuel's father was James Rhodes, a Nebraska farmer. He was a nephew of the clergyman who was Cecil Rhodes' father, from Hertfordshire, England. He journeyed to America and became a farmer. He married an Anne Wallace, a cousin of the Lew Wallace who wrote BEN-HUR.

Each of the Flashes found their own ways to get thier stories out. Both Jay and Barry Allen used Gardner Fox as one of their prime contacts---in the somewhat fictionalized "Flash of Two Worlds" Barry admits he's about to call Gardner to give the information of the story to him. (Actually, "Earth-Two" was created because a reporter got wind of the reality of the Justice Society, and was researching same---so by placing the JSA on an "alternate Earth" Barry hoped to throw the reporter off the track.) John Broome and Bob Kanigar were two other contacts.

Wally West, after he matured and took over the Flash mantle, would occasionally relay his experiences to the comics creators---since he abandoned any pretence of a secret identity, he had no problem with that, and he was always prone to emulate anything his "uncle" Barry did---and it is said Mark Waid, at least, was contacted by the older Iris Russell West Allen for some details on the lives of Wally and his relatives. Of course, how much the rest of the world knew about the deeds of the Flashes was always exagerrated, the deeds being much more secretive than the comics implied.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

"Wild, Wild, and Young Wild---The West Family"

"The All-Aces Squad", the first to make a connection between a super-powered speedster super-hero and Professor Gibberne. A stimulating and inspiring article.

Of course, TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. "The Hulk", of course, is currently owned by Marvel Comics Group. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.